Antigua towels off, lightens up for 2010

Originally published in OnGolf.ca

The dead of December might not seem like the time to be talking about short sleeves and lightweight, moisture-wicking fabrics, but if you’ve got a sunbelt destination in your holiday future, this is news you can use.

And besides, with all the talk of climate change these days, who knows when the Canadian courses might open in 2010?

Know this: whether you’re sweating it out in the Bahamas this winter or looking instead to another one of Canada’s 30 C (86 F)-plus summers, you’re eventually going to want a golf shirt that doesn’t wither and wilt under the heat.

The Arizona-based Antigua Group, maker of one of the game’s newest mid-range apparel brands, is marking its 30th year in the golf business by doing its bit for global warming.

Desert Dry Xtra-Lite (D2XL) is the wispy, light-as-air fabric that comprises the backbone of Antigua’s men’s and women’s apparel line for 2010.

Despite its almost space-age lack of mass, D2XL isn’t even remotely sheer, which means those of us with curves and jutty bits where we’re not supposed to need not endure the suffocating indignity of cotton any longer.

Sure, there are a host of other moisture-wicking and heat dispersing fabrics on the market, but D2XL is the closest thing you’ll find to the sensation of not even wearing a shirt at all. Thanks to a hit of elasticity, it doesn’t bind, trap body heat, retain odour or accentuate your love handles the way some other modern fabrics do.

2XL is a marked improvement over some of Antigua’s earlier performance-line offerings, which – like so many early efforts at moisture-management fabrics – ended up feeling hot and clammy to the touch.

According to Antigua, the fabric’s “three-dimensional” construction makes it extremely light without being sheer or see-through, and wicks away moisture even quicker than Antigua’s original Desert Dry fabric introduced some ears ago.

If you have any Antigua from previous years in your closet, you might notice a common theme: a lot of bright pastel colours. In 2010, Antigua says it’s going in a “new direction” with something called “contemporary performance,” replacing its active brights “with a rich, sophisticated color palette and clean, updated styling details to complete its transformation to a contemporary performance men’s golf wear collection for Spring 2010.”

“Our target audience is the weekend golfer who expects their apparel to perform,” Antigua president and CEO Ron McPherson said in a release.

“When golfers began demanding performance apparel several years ago, we not only continued to excel as a genuine golf brand, but we easily shifted to performance apparel.”